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Prof. Sam Lehman-Wilzig: What the Media Should be Asking “Progressives” on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
Watching/hearing/reading an interview with a public personality in the media can be a frustrating experience when the interviewer doesn’t ask the really tough questions that you wanted asked. Not to mention the occasional tough question that the interviewee doesn’t answer – and the questioner blithely goes on to another question. Unfortunately, this occurs far too often in the American and Israeli press.
So here are some tough questions that perhaps some interviewers will take up – this time for (left-wing) “progressives” (the first two questions especially for American progressives; the rest for progressives anywhere). Next week, I’ll turn to (right-wing) “conservatives” with different tough questions.
1) If Israel is a colonialist enterprise and you support Palestinians from the “River to the Sea,” why don’t you give back the U.S. to the Indians? Palestinian enclaves in the West Bank and Gaza are a “no-no” but Indian reservations are fine?
2) As for Israeli expansionist settlements in what they call Judea & Samaria, do you remember something your American forefathers called “Manifest Destiny”? Moreover, that Western takeover was on land that Americans had never lived on beforehand – as opposed to Jewish life in the Holy Land’s hill country for over a thousand years a few millennia ago. So why Manifest Destiny – yes; Judea & Samaria – no?
3) In the aftermath of World War 2 and subsequent wars, tens of millions of refugees were displaced and had to start life anew in a different country where they have resettled and obtained citizenship. Indeed, none have returned to their original homes. Why, then, do you continue to maintain that Palestinian refugees have the right to return to their former homes in Israel? Why is their situation any different from the rest of the world’s war refugees?
4) How can you continue to accuse Israel of “apartheid” when Arab-Israeli Palestinians are found sitting on the Supreme Court, in the Knesset, and basically in every other civilian walk of life e.g., heads of hospitals, university rectors, even security guards at malls! As for any “discrimination” against West Bank Palestinians, they aren’t (and don’t want to be) Israeli citizens, so how can that be considered “apartheid”? And if your reply is “OK, but it’s certainly colonialism,” please answer questions 1 & 2 above.
5): As diehard supporters of LGBTQ+ rights, how do you justify supporting Hamas who won’t countenance any homosexual in its midst? (Even occasionally murdering them!) For that matter, if you are so pro-feminist, when was the last time you saw a woman within the Hamas leadership? (Answer: never.) So why continue backing such a retrograde movement?
6) Hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese are on the verge of complete starvation, with tens of thousands already killed in its ongoing civil war. Why, then, are you demonstrating non-stop regarding far fewer deaths in Gaza but not a single protest about the far larger tragedy 1700 miles south of Gaza? Indeed, you even call Israelis “racist” for engaging in a war they didn’t start. But isn’t it real racism when you protest “whites” fighting “browns” but not blacks killing other blacks? Isn’t that a mockery of Black Lives Matter?
7) The motto “From the River to the Sea” means one thing: Israel as the Jewish State should not exist. You claim that this is mere “anti-Zionism.” But that constitutes singling out Israel as the only nation-state in the world that should be eliminated! But not only are Jews a well-defined people (religion, culture) with a history going back at least 3000 years, “Palestinian nationhood” on the other hand NEVER existed in the past. How could such singling out the Jewish nation for special “treatment” not be considered “(out of the) closet anti-Semitism”?
8) Many of you progressives are not anti-Semitic but rather true peace seekers, arguing for a two-state solution with the Palestinians. But which Palestinians do you expect Israel to sue for peace with? Secular Fatah – or extremist Hamas, a movement that attacked and killed numerous Fatah members in Gaza almost two decades ago and won’t allow elections to be conducted since then? If the former, then why aren’t you supporting Israel’s attempt to annihilate Hamas – the only way forward to any true peaceful solution?
9) In the present war, why do you keep using the term “occupation” regarding Israel’s policy towards Gaza, when back in the mid-2000s Israel left Gaza completely?
10) Recent public opinion polls taken in Gaza (by Palestinian pollsters) show that approximately 70% support Hamas’s war with Israel and think that the Oct. 7 attack was warranted. Why, then, do you continue to talk about “innocent” civilians dying as war casualties? In World War II no one considered civilian Germans as “innocent” bystanders (including their children), nor were the Allies accused as war criminals after carpet bombing Dresden and other cities. Why, then, do you consider Hamas supporters to be “victims” of Israeli “aggression” when they back the barbarous war behavior of their leadership?
In Jewish parlance, that’s a minyan of questions, so I can stop here. Let’s see whether the Western press is willing to confront the “progressive” camp with this array of no-holds-barred questioning.
